Articles

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine May 1977, Volume 11, Number 11 Northern Bluegrass — A Tangle of Roots and Contradictions The whole idea of Northern bluegrass sounds like a contradiction in terms. Bluegrass is the essence of the rural music of the traditional South. It seems impossible that Northerners, especially those from city and college…

Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April 1987, Volume 21, Number 10 It’s 1963 in Washington Square Park, downtown Manhattan, on a Sunday afternoon. A young man of seventeen carrying a banjo case is inching his way forward through a crowded circle of bystanders toward its center where several bluegrass musicians are jamming near a fountain….

Photos by Raymond Huffmaster Reprinted from Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine April 1989, Volume 23, Number 10 Bluegrass music as played by Bill Monroe is like no other sound on earth—and setting it on tape is like no other recording session. The sounds of bagpipes, blues, mountain churches and running brooks are echoed in Monroe’s tunes—it’s not…

Finding a new favorite band through a performance or recording is one of the ultimate joys of being a music fan. Last June, at the California Bluegrass Association’s Father’s Day Festival in Grass Valley, the Alum Ridge Boys & Ashlee took the stage Friday afternoon for their first set of the weekend.  Three songs into…

Two Decades of Life, Music, and Personal Growth for the Infamous Stringdusters “Life is a constant journey, always changing, always presenting challenges and always forcing you to evolve,” says Infamous Stringdusters banjo-picker Chris Pandolfi. Pandolfi is reflecting on twenty years of the Infamous Stringdusters as a band. In those twenty years, the Stringdusters established themselves…

In the early days of the IBMA conference, kids’ involvement was nearly non-existent.  Former IBMA president, Pete Wernick—who put together a kids band to perform at the 1993 IBMA awards show—explains, “In 1993 when the Bluegrass Youth All-Stars appeared on the awards show, that was the first time that kids had ever been on stage…